ORATORIO OF LORETINO

ORATORIO OF LORETINO

The Oratory of Loretino, built between 1285 and 1295 on the ground floor of the town hall, as a private chapel for the rulers, became a very important place of worship for the community of San Miniato when, in 1399, the wooden image the SS. Crucifix was transferred here. The decision to keep the Crucifix in the palace chapel, followed the one to close the presbytery with a wrought iron gate, a valuable Gothic artefact decorated with golden vegetable spirals (an inscription is engraved with the name of the forger , the Senese Conte Orlandi). Several decades later , in the early fifteenth century, to make the room even more precious, it was decided to cover the walls of the chapel with a fresco decoration with scenes from the Childhood of Christ on the left wall and the Passion on the right wall. In 1527 the back wall of the Oratory was embellished by a beautiful gilded wooden altar made by carvers of the place. It consists of five niches in which there are panels by the painter Francesco Lanfranchi, known as the Pin: in the niches at the ends there are the two patron saints of the city, San Genesio on the right and San Miniato on the left. The Annunciation and two angels facing the central niche are in the central part.